The present invention relates to simulators for industrial plants and, in particular, to a console and data processing equipment arranged to simulate more than one industrial plant.
Modern industrial plants have evolved to the point where their complexity requires an operator having a high degree of skill. It is not practical to train such an operator at an actual plant since the processes involved are normally kept running continuously and are not conveniently stopped and restarted for training purposes. Furthermore, it is unacceptable to allow a plant to reach an unsafe condition merely to test an operator's proficiency.
Accordingly, many industries especially in the utility/power industry, have resorted to simulators which incorporate a console having many of the control switches and operating instruments found in an actual control room and arranged to duplicate the actual appearance of a control panel. By various electronic means these known simulators respond to operator control signals to display various operating parameters. In some simulators, an instructor has the ability to induce an electronically simulated failure within the plant. This induced failure tests the ability of the student to quickly analyze and properly respond to a plant fault.
A disadvantage with existing simulators is their dedication to a particular plant. Known simulator consoles have been so closely designed to match a particular plant that they are not useful for training for another plant.
For example, a utility may employ various combinations of boilers, air heaters and pulverizers at various sites. One utility may use a known trisector air heater at one site and employ a primary-secondary air heater at another site. Similarly, utilities may fire a boiler with coal which can be pulverized either by a known roller-type mill or a ball mill. Also, the variations in boilers employed at various utility sites can be numerous and some utilities may use both natural circulation and once-through type boilers.
Another disadvantage with known simulators is that they do not take advantage of already existing and designed equipment used to actually control an industrial plant. For example, equipment exists to control in an analog and in a digital fashion various controllable devices of an industrial plant. It would be advantageous to incorporate portions of such existing equipment into a simulator rather than designing new equipment to simulate the operation caused by these pre-existing controls.
Another disadvantage of existing simulators in their attempt to duplicate identically a control room, is the extensive space required for such simulation. Often these simulators include racks of duplicate instruments used to monitor multiple stages that operate in parallel in an industrial plant.
Accordingly there is a need for an improved simulator which is compact and sufficiently flexible to allow simulation of different industrial plants. Furthermore, such improved simulators ought to employ existing equipment actually used in an industrial plant to allow accurate simulation and a reduction in engineering time.